


The 17.22 to Waverly

by astrothsknot



Series: No More I Love Yous [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Found on my computer and I quite like it, Gen, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, Totally failing the Blechdel Test
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-10-16 04:48:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10563942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrothsknot/pseuds/astrothsknot
Summary: Why do we tell strangers things we'd never tell our lovers?





	

THE 17.22 TO WAVERLY

PG13, Gen

My train was late. I’d made it by the skin of my teeth. I nearly hadn’t made it at all. Not because I was late - I'd been waiting for over an hour, in Crewe's bloody tea-room cum pub. An hour of stale cakes and industrial strength tea.

If there is a hell, it’ll Crewe waiting room.

I felt sick, and my rings were tight. I should have taken them off, but I couldn’t. It seemed too much like thinking.

I didn’t want to think. I didn’t want to feel; beyond that curdling in my stomach that I could tell myself was strong tea, and stronger cakes. It gave me something to focus on.

Dragging my bag - Charlie had given me that bag...Christ! Don’t wanna think about that now. Feel sick. I feel sick.

I found a seat next to a woman, late forties I suppose. She’d bought a few bottles of red wine from the buffet car.

It was either bravery or she had trust in a Higher power that I didn’t. 

I would have liked some.

It was a table seat, and I was glad of that. It was all scratched and scarred. It reminded me of my desk in Latin at school, all graffitti’d. “Latin is a language, dead as dead can be. It killed the Ancient Romans and now it’s killing me.”

Funny, I mused to myself, that I recalled the rhyme, better than the Latin. I’d been good at it as well. I came top of Scotland in that year.

Then, memories of my schooldays came to me. No reason for it, but there never is, is there?

Fudge donuts - the break in between the two Higher English exams, we’d all gone to sit in Jackie Dunlop’s class, and she’d bought fudge donuts for everyone.

Funny, what we remember, and what starts us off on trains of thought. I started to think about that girl I’d met in Callander when I was about 10, and had swam the Teith for the first time. She’d brought a can of Cherry Coke over, stuffed in her swimsuit. Couldn’t have been long after they’d brought out that flavour, because that was my first taste. Wonder where she was now?

Strange how passing conversations with strangers can form part of treasured memories. Wonder if I held such a part in someone else's' life? They do say that people only die when we forget them.

I remembered meeting Charlie. Push that thought away.

The woman was looking at me. She had poured two glasses of wine. She smiled and offered one of them towards me.

For a moment I hesitated. Then, returning the smile, I took the glass.

I’ve tasted better paint-stripper. Decorating the flat, 2am, more paint on us than the walls. I wrecked my new Crowbar T-shirt.

“You look thoughtful,” she said.

“I was just thinking of school. Got me started on other things,” I replied, sipping the paint-stripper.

“One thing sparks off another. Must be why it’s called a train of thought.” We both laughed. She poured more paint-stripper for us. I hadn’t realised that I'd drunk the first lot that fast. 

Oh well.

The train flashed through a station, and I caught a glimpse of a mother pulling her child back from the edge. I lit a cigarette. I hadn’t smoked in years, and these were the full strength. The nicotine rush made me feel dizzy. It was conspiring with the wine. 

Fine. Something else had me on its hit list.

“So where are you heading?” She asked.

“Just felt like a trip down memory lane,” I replied. Back to that again. “You?”

“Family wedding.” She smiled, and decided to risk it. “My ex-husband has invited me to his latest wedding.”

“What number is he on, after you?” 

“Fourth.”

I twisted my rings. Too tight, for this time of the month. “Take it it’s sent you down memory lane?”

She laughed. “It’s turned into a bloody traffic jam!”

“Know that feeling.” I muttered. Her laugh had a brittle quality, as if she was putting a brave face on it. Or was that just me?

“Oh?” I’d managed to trap myself into talking about exactly what I didn’t want to think about.

And she was right. I did need to talk to someone who didn’t know us, and would never be affected by it, or could use it against us.

That’s why we tell strangers all kind of personal stuff, right?

Maybe that was why I took the train, when I’ve got a perfectly good Vitara at home.

My companion was ahead of me. “Man trouble?”

It was easy to nod. I recalled the day I met Charlie - he’d been standing in the hall with my brother, covered in sawdust, tool belt, reddish-brown hair, warm brown eyes, and a light-up-a-room smile.

Six foot sexy, was the way Suzanne had described him, and it was true. You could see it when we went out. He was a head turner, and I loved it.

My companion listened, and refilled our glasses. That Virgin wine was effective. It was at least half an hour since I’d felt my feet. Even more worryingly, it was starting to taste better. Oh fuck! I thought. I’ve killed my tongue!

“A charmer, is he?”

I nodded - I think. 

Her face, especially her eyes, went hard and distant. Even her voice sounded like it came from a long way off. “I used to know someone like that,” she said between mouthfuls of wine. “He was my friend’s husband.” She looked out of the window, but it was dark now, and there were only our reflections. But maybe that’s what she was seeing.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Spent years cheating on her, spent all of her money. Every time he was caught out, managed to worm his way back in. Wasted the best years of her life with him.”

“What a waste,” I agreed with her.

“What a waste,” she echoed. She looked at the wine, and opened the second bottle, poured it into the plastic glasses - or is the proper name for them a plass?

We’d stopped sipping it by now. Probably just as well, because I was dimly aware of the train stopping, and people getting on and off. The name on the platform was one that was just inside the Scots border. Its real name is probably not Offy-Out-Of-Focus. Home in an hour and a half. The first - sipped - bottle had taken nearly 3 hours to drink. This one would have to go down a hell of a lot quicker.

Home in an hour and a half.

“It wasn’t as if they didn’t have some good times for the first few years. They used to have a laugh.” My companion spoke again. “We had a lovely house. I used to think that no one was as happy as we were. I can still remember the way he used to come in smelling of other womens’ perfume. The way I felt when he’d come from their beds back to mine. If I caught him either they or I would get the blame, and then we’d make up, and it would be wonderful again. He never wanted to leave, and he never wanted me to leave. I didn’t want to leave, either. What would I have, without him? There were no children, just us and a house.”

I closed my eyes. I knew the feeling. Being able to compartmentalise your life, kidding yourself that neither part affects the other. What the eye don’t see, the heart don’t grieve over.

“I can still see Charlie trying to phone me, talk to me. Flowers, choccies. He even threatened to kill himself if I didn’t talk to him. He didn’t mean it. He’s still alive.” I drained the plass, and she refilled it. Wasn’t long until Edinburgh.

“My ex never went that far!” She sounded miffed. “But I did get fat on all the chocolates. Just gave him another excuse.”

“Why’d you go in the end?”

“Because I realised that he may have loved me, but he didn’t respect me. I deserved more.” She looked as if she’d never really considered the question before. “I didn’t walk out sooner because I didn’t want to admit that I might have wasted 20 years of my life, then I decided that I didn’t want to waste another 20 years.”

“I’m not good with searching questions, either.” I was glad I wasn’t driving. I was now Philosophical, and soon I would be Maudlin. Another ten minutes I'll at All Men Are Bastards or I Really Love My Hamster.

“You can’t put wrongs right, but you can stop wasting time being wrong.” She didn’t sound too far off them, either. “Got any kids?”

I shook my head. “I had a miscarriage 3 months ago. I’m not coping too well with it.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “It must be a terrible thing to go through.”

Waverly. We were here. We gulped down the rest of the wine, and picked up our bags. “We’re both rather the worse for wear. I’m sure we can give you a lift, if you need one, hotel or something?”

“Thanks, but I’m actually changing for Stirling.” I put my plass back down on the table, quick drunken check to ensure that no money or valuables were left behind. We won’t count my sobriety in amongst them. “Thanks.” 

She smiled, and shook my hand. “Leave him, my dear. Life’s too short, y’know?”

She left the train.

I followed, walking towards the pub. I wanted another drink. I caught sight of the woman again. An older man of about 50 was shaking her hand. Behind them, a man of about 35 was holding a child of 4 or 5. The little boy was the image of his father.

The younger man held himself away from the older one. She’d said that she had no children with her first husband.....

Even from this distance, I could see the little boy reach out for his Mummy, and telling her excitedly about some doggy that jumped up high enough to get the biscuits. The young man took her bags, giving her a kiss that no son would give his mother.

She saw me watching and waved. I waved back. I could imagine her telling her husband about me, “This women I met on the train, legging it from her husband.....” 

I was already being consigned to a lay-by on Memory Lane.

It dawned on me that I hadn’t asked her name, nor she mine. It didn’t matter. I didn’t need her name for the purpose of memory. She would still be there, like strangers caught in the background of my photos.

I sighed. I was still no further forward. I was still only in Edinburgh. I got out my phone, and phoned Charlie's' mobile. As I suspected, Suzanne answered. After telling me that Charlie was having a shower, and would be round for the rest of his stuff in the morning, I got a blow-by-blow account of what she and Charlie had got up to that afternoon.

A man’s hand took my phone from behind me, and hung up. “Just as well that was me,” said Charlie. “Because you are far too pissed to chase after me if it wasn’t.”

“You should see your face!” He giggled in spite of himself. He’d been crying, his eyes had the white, pinched looked of someone who’d been crying for a long time, and had only just stopped. He seemed reluctant to hand back my phone.

“How’s your phone at Suzanne’s’?” I asked.

“Left it there this morning, when I went round there looking for you.” He still held on to my phone. “We have to sort this out.”

“What, now?” I looked around. 

“Before you run off again there’s 40 minutes till the next Stirling train. We’ve got time.”

“I don’t need time. I need space.” I needed a drink. I could see the pub over Charlie’s shoulder.

“You’ve got too much space.” There were no accusations or double meanings. Just a statement of fact. “I don’t care who you slept with, I can live with it. But I can’t live like this.” 

“I can’t change the past.” I was beginning to sober up. “But I think that I should stop wasting my time. It’s too short.”

“I want you back.” Four little words. Four of the biggest words in the English language. I couldn’t say anything.

“I wanted that baby as much as you did. It broke my heart when we lost it. We shouldn’t have shut each other out. But we did.”

“It’s not as bad as sleeping with other men,” I pointed out. 

“No, but life's too short to sit around blaming people. It goes on and so do we.” He handed me back my phone. “I’m going to the bookshop for 15 minutes. Then I’m leaving, with or without you.” He looked like he wanted to add something, but must have decided against it.

Charlie walked off to the bookshop.

He was right, course. Things couldn’t go on as they had. My travelling companion had refused to waste another 20 years, and look where she had landed. In many ways, I was luckier than she, I was being given a choice, a chance at life alone, or a chance with the man that I still loved.

But both she and Charlie were right. Whatever path I chose, things couldn’t go on as they had. The past had to be laid to rest, or it would destroy me. 

I looked at the pub, and saw an attractive young man, give me the once over, and a smile. To the left of the pub, one of the opening to the streets, people coming and going, oblivious to me. Left again, to Charlie. I don’t know what it was; I saw them all differently than had done in Crewe. I had been right. The journey had done me good. Given me some space.

Memories have to be able to rest in peace.


End file.
